anonymity in the city streets, or even murder once again. The Captain brooded over the organization of the guard, but could not see how the net could be drawn tighter.
But he was in a grumpy mood when he went down for breakfast. He drew a cup of coffee in the kitchen, wandered back through the radio room, dining room, hallways, and he did become aware of something. There were no night men sleeping on the cots in their underwear Everyone was awake and dressed; even as he looked about, he saw three men strapping on their guns.
Most of the cops in Operation Lombard were detectives and carried the standard.38 Police Special. A few lucky ones had.357 Magnums or.45 automatics. Some men had two weapons. Some bolstered on the hip; some in front, at the waist. One man carried an extra holster and a small.32 at his back. One man carried an even smaller.22 strapped to his calf, under his trouser leg.
Delaney had no objection to this display of unofficial hardware. A dick carried what gave him most comfort on a job in which the next opened door might mean death. The Captain knew some carried saps, brass knuckles, switch-blade knives. That was all right. They were entitled to anything that might give them that extra edge of confidence and see them through.
But what was unusual was to see them make these preparations now, as if they sensed their long watch was drawing to a close. Delaney could guess what they were thinking, what they were discussing in low voices, looking up at him nervously as he stalked by.
First of all, they were not unintelligent men; you were not promoted from patrolman to detective by passing a “stupid test.” When Captain Delaney took over command of Operation Lombard, all their efforts were concentrated on Daniel G. Blank, with investigations of other suspects halted. The dicks realized the Captain knew something they didn’t know: Danny Boy was their pigeon. Delaney was too old and experienced a cop to put his cock on the line if he wasn’t sure, of that they were certain.
Then the word got around that he had requested the Kope photo. Then the telephone men heard the taped replay, from the man tapping Danny Boy’s phone, of the phone call from Monica Gilbert. Then the special guard was placed on the Gilbert widow and her children. All that was chewed over in radio room and squad car, on lonely night watches and long hours of patrol. They knew now, or guessed, what he was up to. It was a wonder, Delaney realized, he had been able to keep it private as long as he had. Well, at least it was his responsibility. His alone. If it failed, no one else would suffer from it. If it failed…
There was no report of any activity from Danny Boy at 9:00 a.m., 9:15, 9:30, 9:45, 10:00. Early on when the vigil was first established, they had discovered a back entrance to Blank’s apartment house, a seldom-used service door that opened onto a walk leading to 82nd Street. An unmarked car, with one man, was positioned there, in full view of this back exit, with orders to report in every fifteen minutes. This unit was coded Bulldog 10, but was familiarly known as Ten-0. Now, as Delaney passed back and forth through the radio room, he heard the reports from Ten-0 and from Bulldog One, the Con Ed van parked on the street in front of the White House.
10:15, nothing, 10:30, nothing. No report of Danny Boy at 10:45, 11:00, 11:15, 11:30. Shortly before 12:00, Delaney went into his study and called Blank’s apartment. The phone rang and rang, but there was no answer. He hung up; he was worried.
He took a cab over to the hospital. Barbara seemed in a semi-comatose state and refused to eat her meal. So he sat helplessly alongside her bed, holding her limp hand, pondering his options if Blank didn’t appear for the rest of the day.
It might be that he was up there, just not answering his phone. It might be that he had slipped through their net, was long gone. And it might be that he had slit his throat after receiving the Kope photo, and was up there all right, leaking blood all over his polished floor. Delaney had told Sergeant MacDonald that Danny Boy wouldn’t suicide, but he was going by patterns, by percentages. No one knew better than he that percentages weren’t certainties.
He got back to his brownstone a little after 1:00 p.m. Ten-0 and Bulldog One had just reported in. No sign of Danny Boy. Delaney had Stryker called at the Factory. Blank hadn’t arrived at the office. The Captain went back into his study and called Blank’s apartment again. Again the phone rang and rang. No answer.
By this time, without intending to, he had communicated his mood to his men; now he wasn’t the only one pacing through the rooms, hands in pockets, head lowered. The men, he noticed, were keeping their faces deliberately expressionless, but he knew they feared what he feared: the pigeon had flown.
By two o’clock he had worked out a contingency plan. If Danny Boy didn’t show within another hour, at 3:00 p.m., he’d send a uniformed officer over to the White House with a trumped-up story that the Department had received an anonymous threat against Daniel Blank. The patrolman would go up to Blank’s apartment with the doorman, and listen. If they heard Blank moving about, or if he answered his bell, they would say it was a mistake and come away. If they heard nothing, and if Blank didn’t answer his bell, then the officer would request the doorman or manager to open Blank’s apartment with the pass-keys “just to make certain everything is all right.”
It was a sleazy plan, the Captain acknowledged. There were a hundred holes in it; it might endanger the whole operation. But it was the best he could come up with; it had to be done. If Danny Boy was long gone, or dead, they couldn’t sit around watching an empty hole. He’d order it at exactly 3:00 p.m.
He was in the radio room, and at 2:48 p.m. there was a burst of static from one of the radio speakers, then it cleared. “Barbara from Bulldog One.”
“Got you, Bulldog One.”
“Fernandez,” the voice said triumphantly. “Danny Boy just came out.”
There was a sigh in the radio room; Captain Delaney realized part of it was his.
“What’s he wearing?” he asked the radioman.
The operator started to repeat the question into his mike, but Fernandez had heard the Captain’s loud voice.
“Black topcoat,” he reported. “No hat. Hands in pockets. He’s not waiting for a cab. Walking west. Looks like he’s out for a stroll. I’ll put Bulldog Three on him, far back, and two sneaks on foot. Officer LeMolle, designated Bulldog Twenty. Officer Sanchez, designated Bulldog Forty. Got that?”
“LeMolle is Bulldog Twenty, Sanchez is Forty.”
“Right. You’ll get radio checks from them as soon as possible. Danny Boy is nearing Second Avenue now, still heading west. I’m out.”
Delaney stood next to the radio table. The other men in the room closed in, heads turned, ears to the loudspeaker.
Silence for almost five minutes. One man coughed, looked apologetically at the others.
Then, almost a whisper: “Barbara from Bulldog Twenty. Read me?”
“Soft but good, Twenty.”
“Danny Boy between Second and Third on Eighty-third, heading west. Out.” It was a woman’s voice.
“Who’s Lemolle?” Delaney asked Blankenship. “Policewoman Martha LeMolle. Her cover is a housewife- shopping bag, the whole bit.”
Delaney opened his mouth to speak, but the radio crackled again.
“Barbara from Bulldog Forty. Make me?”
“Yes, Forty. Good. Where is he?”
“Turning south on Third. Out.”
Blankenship turned to Delaney without waiting for his question. “Forty is Detective second grade Ramon Sanchez. Dressed like an orthodox Jewish rabbi.”
So when Daniel G. Blank deposited the brown paper bag in the litter basket, the housewife was less than twenty feet behind him and saw him do it, and the rabbi was across the avenue and saw him do it. They both shadowed Danny Boy back to his apartment house, but by the time he arrived they had both reported he had discarded something in a litter basket, they had given the exact location (northeast corner, Third and 82nd; and, at Delaney’s command, Blankenship had an unmarked car on the way with orders to pick up the entire basket and bring it back to the brownstone. Delaney thought it might be the ice ax.
At least twenty men crowded into the kitchen when the two plainclothesmen carried in the garbage basket and set it on the linoleum.
“I always knew you’d end up in Sanitation, Tommy,” someone called. There were a few nervous laughs.
“Empty it,” Delaney ordered. “Slowly. Put the crap on the floor. Shake out every newspaper. Look into every
